BRANDE : Social Recruiting

Snapchat embraces and champions the ephemeral nature of communication in a landscape that is saturated with it. Snap a pic or a vid, send it to a friend, and moments after being viewed it self-destructs into the ether forevermore. We’re talking about communication that both originates from and elicits an immediate emotional response, as opposed to a long and drawn-out intellectual consideration. For this reason, snapchatting is free of the anxiety surrounding traditional forms of communication. Perhaps this is why the once-spurned app is so popular today.

How can employers use this hugely popular social app to educate, motivate, and inspire employees, transforming them into full-fledged brand ambassadors? Could Snapchat be your most powerful tool to drive employee engagement? Only one way to know. Here are five ways you can test it out.

1) Company culture in a snap

Snapchat gives employers an opportunity to learn how to share knowledge in new and exciting ways. Use it to promote and celebrate your company culture from within. Create and share compelling “stories” that capture what life is like at your workplace. Use it to focus staff attention on specific messages and goals. Embrace and encourage the idea of employees creating internal communications that are fun, yet focused on meaningful tasks.

Create a Snapchat channel that informs employees of important company news and events, relevant “stories” currently trending, and other hot conversation topics to keep them engaged. Snap and share original content to make company-wide or departmental announcements. Compile and maintain a go-to list of relevant and buzzworthy accounts for employees to follow.

3) Use Snapchat to reward, honor, and showcase excellence

Feature an employee, a partner, a department, or a project team on your company Snapchat feed (as either the subject or the creator of snaps or “stories”). Allow employees to nominate features with their own snap submissions. Snap a “story” that explores a day in the life of a particular employee or department. Increase interdepartmental awareness and broaden your employees’ sense of engagement with the bigger brand picture.

4) A snap for project management

It is not hard to see how Snapchat could be useful in a project management context — to share status updates and progress reports quickly and efficiently, for example. The creative, urgent, and flash-in-the-pan nature of the app makes it remarkably suited to a fast-paced work environment. Snapchat seems like the perfect tool to keep a team united, energized, and communicating in a creative and fun way around a specific goal.

5) Create a Snapchat contest

Host a Snapchat contest to rally and socialize staff. A Snapchat treasure hunt could lead employees on a journey of brand and interdepartmental discovery as they work together in teams to decipher snapped clues. A cropped-image riddle might involve the distribution of an incomplete snap image resulting in employee snaps guessing the complete image.

The preferred social media app of tweens, teens, and young adults can now be used as a powerful employer branding tool, offering immediate access to everything from job opportunities, to sneak-peek previews of new products to on-the-fly mini-movies that both entertain and inform. So start snapping.

For more on the Brandemix approach to employee engagement, click here.

In the world of social recruiting, likes are nice, but comments and social shares are the measures of true engagement. A like is a check-in, a way of letting people know you’ve stopped in and found their picture, post or politics interesting. A comment puts you more squarely in the picture. You’ve now added your agreement, opinion, and/or support. And at the top of the list is the share. A share is a sign of revelation or recommendation. It’s your endorsement of something you’ve found so amusing or insightful that everyone you know needs to know and share as well.

With this in mind, and thanks to the Social Recruitment Monitor which tracks social recruitment activity, I took a look at two companies’ recent Facebook social efforts.

This Texas-based men’s haircut franchise has more than 1,300 locations open in the U.S. and Canada. Last week’s activities included 12 posts which yielded 604 likes, 40 comments, and 85 Shares. As a social recruiting strategist, I wanted to go deeper into what they were posting that created such a buzz.

I found health tips for the hairdresser, help for summer hair, and information on contests and scholarships. I also found (see image) a Thank You.

It’s everything I would recommend as best practice, yet unfortunately didn’t yield any indication of audience engagement beyond “likes.” It didn’t drive a lot of engagement, but perhaps Oldcastle’s metrics show it drove a lot of applicants.

This manufacturer and distributor of building parts had 32 posts last week — yielding 111 likes, 0 comments, and 0 shares. A look at their efforts shows a thoughtful blend of social content including job opportunities, recruiter spotlights, corporate volunteering events, jobs data from Monster, and even beautiful outdoor living environments that tie into their core products.

The Takeaways

As recruiting teams recognize and realize the benefits of social recruitment, have a strategy in place.

As a Branding professional I am of the belief that true brand equity is built over time through the promotion of a series of consistent messages that promote a firm’s unique offering- or value proposition. Yet over the years, I’ve been following with interest the widely successful TV and Radio spots for Geico Insurance. In case you’re not familiar with them, they are an 80-year old insurance company (the GEICO name is an acronym for Government Employees Insurance Company because when they were founded, they targeted a customer base of government and military employees) and today they are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

Flying in the face of branding convention, their consumer advertising is anything but consistent. They’ve memorialized Cavemen, Gecko’s and Hump Day. Watch the clips from their website link and you’ll find them short, humorous and disruptive.

For those who follow my ERE articles, you’ll know that my mantra is “One Brand” which advises Talent Acquisition professionals to tie the Employer Brand to the consumer brand. So of course I was curious about Geico Careers social recruiting methodology. Are they following a more traditional path of promoting jobs and the EVP (employer value proposition: the sum total of the benefits of working for a given company or what the company want’s to be known for in the minds of a candidate) or adopting the corporate path of anarchy?

The answer – it’s a little of both. High marks for their Facebook Careers Community Manager for promoting their commercials –I really do love Alligator Arms.

career development:

managing candidate expectations:

addressing consumer concerns:

and

providing glimpses into their corporate social responsibility and recognition:

So, I guess they’re just lucky. They have a lot of great assets to pull from and a great story to tell. The Social Recruiting takeaway for the rest of us is to use a mixed bag of tricks to make sure that you’re staying true to your brand and your culture while still promoting the career opportunities you’re looking to fill.

Each month, I look at the most liked recruiting content over a seven-day span on Facebook, the most retweeted recruiting tweets on Twitter, and the most viewed recruiting videos on YouTube. Here’s how three top brands are effectively engaging job-seekers on social platforms — and how you can emulate their success.

Northrop Grumman takes a week off from Facebook — and gets lots of love for it.

One of the most popular Facebook recruiting posts of the week was truly unusual. On Christmas Eve, Northrop Grumman Careers posted a simple statement: Our employees will be spending the holidays with their friends and families Dec. 25 – Jan. 1. Our community managers will reply to your questions in the new year. Happy Holidays! Basically the company was telling fans that it wouldn’t be posting content or responding to queries for nine days (since January 2 and 3 are weekdays). A nice gesture to let job-seekers know there would be a delay. But not exactly a compelling post.

And yet it drew an enormous response. Along with hundreds of likes, followers posted comments like “Loving my two weeks off, thank you Northrop” and “NGC has been good to me for 28 years! Love my job!” Others complimented the company on the extra vacation: “Where I work we don’t have that time off.” A few of the comments drew their own “likes,” adding more engagement to the post and causing Facebook’s algorithm to make it visible to more people.

The final tally: 407 likes, 21 comments, and 12 shares. All for a Facebook post without a photo, video, or a link.

How you can be like Northrop Grumman: Certainly you should let followers know about vacations and holidays that may delay posts or responses. The company made a smart choice by emphasizing its workers, saying “our employees” would be with their families, which is a nice concept everyone can support. It’s worth noting that Northrop didn’t even include a link to their job listings or any sort of message about looking for a job during the holidays. The post is just a friendly, simple message that resonated with the company’s audience.

T-Mobile captures a selfless moment on Twitter

I advise organizations to create great content, whether it’s infographics of employee videos, but sometimes a great social media post comes without warning or preparation. That’s the case for an odd but charming tweet from T-Mobile Careers. The post shows two men working on a car. The text: Our retail teams go above & beyond for each other. @successwithdan‘s manager helped him change a tire! #BeMagenta.

What a lovely, unscripted moment! And perfect for the holidays. It’s unclear who took the photo or how the social media recruiters found out about it, but they made the most of it — tagging the employee’s Twitter handle and adding the recruiting hashtag at the end. The result was five retweets and 15 likes. Not as successful as a polished video, but a great piece of content that reinforces the employer brand. And it cost nothing to produce.

How you can be like T-Mobile: Everyone has a phone — certainly everyone at T-Mobile does! Encourage your employees to capture candid moments like this. Having fun in the break room, attending work events, doing volunteer work, playing with pets or children. All of these humanize your employer brand and show how much you care about your workers. Ask employees to share the images (or videos!) with you, and request permission to use them in your social recruiting efforts. Be sure to credit them or tag them if they wish. It’s almost guaranteed that an employee featured in a social post will share that post with all his networks; @successwithdan — aka T-Mobile sales rep Daniel Lundy — sure did.

Starbucks highlights unsung heroes on YouTube

When most people hear the term “Starbucks job,” they usually think of baristas making coffee. But Starbucks manages an entire supply chain that requires workers with much different skills, far from the public eye. The company’s “Jobs” playlist on its YouTube channel features a great video just for them: Jobs with Starbucks Distribution.

The video runs just 1:10 but showcases four employees as they work a conveyor belt, drive forklifts, and haul packages. It’s not glamorous work, but the employees talk about how friendly everyone is, how interesting the work is, and how Starbucks helps them move laterally or vertically through the company. There are no special effects, very little on-screen text, and one simple music track. You can hear many of the right words in those 70 seconds: diversity, benefits, “bean stocks” (shares in the company).

How you can be like Starbucks: Video content is on the rise and should make a major impact in 2016, not only in marketing but in talent acquisition. Though it has garnered more than 9,000 views, Starbucks’ video looks like it took only a day to shoot; most of it takes place on the factory floor, with a few shots in a cubicle, and testimonials taking place in a hallway. The employees are wearing their full gear. They don’t seem scripted or over-rehearsed. So you don’t need a huge budget or a large camera crew to film something compelling that highlights employees who, as with T-Mobile, will undoubtedly share the video they star in. Grab your phone, interview your workers, and shoot some “b-roll” of your workplace. Edit it on iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. Upload it on YouTube and share on your social recruiting channels. Voila — you’re a video recruiter!

Ready to implement strategies from Northrop Grumman, T-Mobile, and Starbucks? Brandemix has a decade of experience in employer branding and has worked in social recruiting since the founding of YouTube and Facebook. Contact us to energize your talent acquisition in 2016.

Each month, I look at the most liked recruiting content over a seven-day span on Facebook, the most retweeted recruiting tweets on Twitter, and the most viewed recruiting videos on YouTube. Here’s how three top brands are effectively engaging job-seekers on social platforms — and how you can emulate their success.

UnitedHealth Group spotlights an employee on Facebook

UnitedHealth Group Careers posted a link to a brief article about “Stacy D.,” the company’s Senior Director of Software Engineering. But the article isn’t the point; it’s well known that many people read only the headline of a story posted on Facebook — even if they end up commenting on it. So what matters here is the headline, the text, and the image.

The post’s copy reads: Learn what [Stacy] loves most about working with our Fortune 14 enterprise, and how her experience here has helped her career growth. A lot of good words there that sound attractive to top talent. UHG was smart to feature an employee, as personal stories often resonate better with job-seekers than approved and often banal statements from the C-suite.

But what makes this post a winner is the accompanying photo of Stacy — not sitting at her desk or shaking hands with someone at a hospital. She’s in full equestrian gear and handling a horse! An unexpected image that shows the UHG values work-life balance (and gives a subtle clue to salary — horsemanship is not a cheap hobby). The sub-headline goes one step further, equating the “fine-tuned relationship” between rider and horse with that of a software engineer and her team. The result is 27 likes and a comment…which drew a kind response from UnitedHealth’s Talent Community Manager.

How you can be like UnitedHealth Group: Featuring employees in social media posts is always a good strategy, as it helps job-seekers relate to the company on a more personal level. The post plays up a software engineer’s responsibilities and career advancement opportunities while at the same time showing what they can accomplish in their spare time. The photo seems to capture a candid moment between Stacy and her horse and looks much different than the standard business-suit-and-gray-background employee photo. What hobbies or interests or accomplishments do your employees have? Who are they beyond their job description? What do they mean to your organization — and what does the organization mean to them? Also worth noting is the response to the Facebook comment by a member of the recruiting team. Is your recruiter monitoring Facebook for questions, concerns, or complaints from job-seekers? If not, what does that say about your attitude towards them?

SpaceX creates 50 ambassadors on Twitter

SpaceX’s recruiting Twitter account, @SpaceXJobs, recently tweeted a photo of its interns. The copy reads: These fall interns are key @SpaceX team members. Check out all our internship opportunities, followed by a link. The image shows several dozen young people in front of SpaceX’s headquarters, making an “X” with their arms. A nice nod to interns, who are often overlooked (and underrepresented in recruitment materials). But not very compelling copy, and the photo doesn’t show interns designing spacecraft or attending launches.

And yet the engagement for the tweet was sky-high: 158 retweets and 453 likes. Why? Because of the First Rule of Social Media: People love to share content about themselves! SpaceX gave 50 Millennials a reason to retweet the photo, simply because they’re pictured. If you think SpaceX must always get Twitter love because it’s a cool company that launches people into space, look closer. Many tweets generate engagement only in the single digits. This post is an outlier, and it’s because so many people are featured. The photo also provoked 17 replies, ranging from interns thanking the company to job-seekers asking questions. A successful post by both hard and soft metrics.

How you can be like SpaceX: I see two lessons here. First, feature your employees. No more stock photos. Job-seekers want to connect with the people at your organization and hear their stories. After all, it’s actual people, not slogans and bullet points, that make up a company’s culture. The other lesson is to remember the interns and entry-level workers at your organization. They will love the recognition, and it will show that you care about every employee at every level. And since those workers tend to be Generation Y — and soon Generation Z — they’re more likely to be on social media and to spread the love around, as Twitter users did for SpaceX.

Brent Redmond Transportation keeps it real on YouTube

I tell clients all the time that they don’t have to spend a lot of money or produce a Hollywood-worthy film to create a strong recruiting video. Brent Redmond proves my point perfectly. Its series of employee testimonials look like they cost nothing — and I mean that as a compliment. As a transportation company, its front-line employees are truck drivers, whom many wouldn’t consider the most articulate or camera-ready subjects. But these brief, single-take videos express an honesty and transparency that is impossible to duplicate.

The Joe Legarretta video is a great example. It runs just 49 seconds. Joe stands in front of his truck, in cold-weather gear (the company didn’t even wait for a nice day to shoot), and talks about his six months at the company. He says things that recruiters don’t often include in their materials, like “I was looking for a job that paid good” and “It’s a difficult job.” But Joe goes on to say that the company “makes a sincere effort to take care of you as a driver.” No viewer would say he was coached; he seems to be speaking off the top of his head. I imagine truck drivers don’t care much for artifice, so they probably connect with Joe’s bluntness.

How you can be like Brent Redmond: If these raw videos, shot in one take — possibly with a cell phone — with no special lighting and no graphics, don’t convince you to produce recruiting videos, nothing will. Brent Redmond didn’t try to spin its driver jobs as something romantic and didn’t add shots of a desert highway at sunset. It simply let its drivers talk honestly about the job and the company. Isn’t it time to turn the camera on your own employees, at all different levels and all different positions? What gems will you discover when they speak about your organization from the heart?

The Takeaways

The most popular social recruiting posts this week all exemplify one best practice: Showcasing your employees. SpaceX did it with a photo. UnitedHealth Group did it with a brief article. Brent Redmond Transportation did it with a short video. Your employees are a great resource for testimonials that go beyond standard talent acquisition clichés. And when you create social content about them, they’re very likely to share it with their own social networks, becoming employer brand ambassadors for your organization.

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